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On January 22, 2018, a rig explosion near Quinton, Oklahoma claimed the lives of five workers, marking the deadliest incident in the U.S. oil and gas industry since the Deepwater Horizon disaster. These incidents, and many others, are tragic reminders of the need for innovation in safety systems.

Whether it’s called Workers' Memorial Day, International Workers' Memorial Day or International Commemoration Day (ICD) for Dead and Injured or Day of Mourning, April 28 will be dedicated – in all corners of the globe - to remembering workers who’ve killed, disabled, injured or sickened by their work.

In our previous two columns on this subject, developing an actionable safety plan is covered in three parts. First Actions was explained in Part One (October 2017 ISHN) and Core Actions detailed in Part Two (January 2018 ISHN). The rest of this column focuses on Sustaining Actions.

Why are we still talking and writing about confined space training a quarter century after OSHA issued its confined space standard for general industry in 1993?

YouTube workers are targeted by an angry shooter, Kentucky restricts the black lung disease diagnosis process and researchers find a surprising yet common injury among actors and technicians who work in theatres. These were among the top occupational safety and health stories featured on ISHN.com this week.

Construction workers ran for their lives yesterday to avoid being crushed by an enormous crane that toppled over yesterday morning at a worksite in St. Petersburg, Florida. No one was injured in the incident but the video obtained by ABC News shows several workers who narrowly avoided being hit by the crane, which was estimated to be about ten stories tall.

Safety managers must ensure that workers of all ages stay safe. However, millennials — those born between 1982 and 1997, and expected to make up half the world’s workforce by 2020 — pose a special challenge.

Recently, I did some health and safety “due diligence” consulting work for a client who wanted to acquire a small, 65-employee business. I thoroughly enjoyed meeting with supervisors and employees and touring the facility and was struck by two important findings: this small company didn’t have much by way of written programs that supported health and safety regulatory compliance AND it had a remarkably good safety record -- one that much larger companies would envy.

The Kentucky legislature this week passed a bill to exclude radiologists from the types of doctors who can diagnose black lung disease among miners seeking workers’ compensation for their illness. A radiologist uses x-rays to diagnose disease. Black lung disease is diagnosed through x-rays and an occupational history.

Depending on the level of exposure, chemical burns can cause permanent skin and tissue damage, and even death. And a chemical burn injury can cost your company millions of dollars in OSHA fines, hospital fees, legal costs, lost productivity, increased insurance premiums and reputation damage.